


shadows crossing

by intrikate88



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-05
Updated: 2012-04-05
Packaged: 2017-11-03 02:55:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/376318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intrikate88/pseuds/intrikate88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A companion piece/prequel to 'we rise as we fall', wherein Mr. Gold and Belle spend a lot of time in Storybrooke doing a bad job of avoiding each other, try not to invoke a dreadfully unhappy ending on themselves, get into trouble, and generally refuse to resolve any of their problems in the most mutually irritating way possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	shadows crossing

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [we rise as we fall](https://archiveofourown.org/works/359336) by [intrikate88](https://archiveofourown.org/users/intrikate88/pseuds/intrikate88). 



> “I thought they refused to talk to each other,” says James. 
> 
> “Please,” says Emma, “they were always very distinctly not talking to each other. They’d go out of their way to end up in the same place and not talk to each other.”
> 
>  
> 
> So this is them, going out of their way to end up in the same place and not talk to each other.

After so many years of unchanging captivity, it was almost anticlimactic when the woman who knew herself as Belle escaped from the psychiatric ward beneath Storybrooke’s hospital.   
  
“You’re going to be alright. Here, let me put this blanket around you, it’s freezing in here. Everything’s going to be okay.” There had been sleeping and dreaming and then a woman, not The Woman, not the Queen, standing there. Belle lets herself be pulled to her feet. She had had this dream before; she knows how it goes.   
  
The cell door creaks when it was opened and Belle emerges into the blinking fluorescent light. She shields her eyes; it’s giving her a headache. “Archie,” says the woman, “what do you think?”   
  
Archie was new. He hadn’t been in her dream before. “I think she needs a better environment than this, whatever her condition,” he answers firmly. He has a file in his hand. It is very thin. Belle knows she has been locked away long enough that any records on her should not be in such a thin file.   
  
And then there’s someone else. Someone definitely in her dream before, except not like this.   
  
“That’s her,” he says shortly. He has a cane. “Excellent work, Miss Swan. I’m sure you can take it from here.” With that, he turns and swiftly limps away, the tapping of his cane the loudest sound in the dank hallway.   
  
Belle frowns. She has gotten good at dreaming. He would not rescue her and then run, not in the dreams she creates.   
  
“Who-” she says hoarsely, her voice faint with infrequent use, “who was that?”   
  
“That,” says the woman with obvious annoyance, “is Mr. Gold. Who was very insistent that you be rescued, up until a second ago. I wish I knew why he suddenly blew out of here so fast.”   
  
“Because he remembers,” says Belle. “And because he isn’t as clever as he thinks.”   
  
“I thought you didn’t know him,” says the woman.   
  
“Let’s get going,” says Archie, a little nervously.   
  
“I just didn’t know his name,” Belle replies, and with that, she awakens into sunlight and a new world.   
  
The woman turns out to be Emma, and the Sheriff, and she does  not serve the queen, she serves the law, she makes very clear. Only the queen is the mayor and the kingdoms are Storybrooke and nobody remembers anything, except Belle, the queen, and Mr. Gold. Belle finds herself at Emma’s apartment, which is also Mary Margaret’s apartment, Mary Margaret whose face was on wanted posters in the forest, Mary Margaret who is Snow White who gives Belle a nightgown and offers her the other half of her bed to sleep in, under real blankets, Snow White who Belle had heard rumors of her pregnancy while the queen plotted the ruin of all outside Belle’s prison door. Emma and Mary Margaret. It is so clear that it hurts, it hurts Belle’s head, and her heart pounds, and her vision spins, and she is crying and doesn’t know why. “Bed,” orders Snow White, and Belle allows herself to be tucked in under the quilt, curled up and aching for everything lost. There is a hole the size of a world inside of her.   
  
The hole does not shrink, but over the next two weeks, its edges become less ragged and prone to crumble beneath her, and it was never her plan to let them devour her, anyway. Mary Margaret is understanding when she has nightmares that wake her up screaming, and when sleep doesn’t come and she sits, nursing cup after cup of tea long into the night. Tea comes in packets, here. Emma brings her clothes, and lets her come along to the sheriff’s office to sit with her during the day.    
  
It takes time, but things hurt less, even if her heart still pounds uncontrollably at the slightest trigger. She sees Archie-- Dr. Hopper, as it turns out-- three times a week, and by the fifth visit, she is walking there on her own.   
  
She collects jobs to keep herself occupied, and to try to make people be less afraid of the town's resident psychotic; one day she'll be washing dishes and making coffee at Granny's, another she'll be writing up reports at the Sheriff's office or telling Leroy he isn't allowed to drive home from the bar; another she'll be helping organize and clean the newly reopened library.    
  
She passes by Mr. Gold’s pawnshop several times, and sees him through the window. He never comes out to speak to her.    
  
Belle wears jeans in a world where tea is in bags and Snow White is a schoolteacher and there is no magic, but nothing, really, has changed.   
  
*  *  *   
  
“Mr. Gold wants a cup of tea,” Ruby calls over the counter, heading over to Archie’s table to take his order. Granny reaches for a mug, but Belle takes it from her hands. “I’ve got this one,” she says.   
  
Granny hears the grim tone in her voice and lifts an eyebrow, but doesn’t say a word. News has quietly gotten around town that it was possible Mr. Gold might have been the one to find out about the basement hospital ward and perhaps had been instrumental in aiding the Sheriff’s investigation.    
  
Belle steeps the tea, quite happy about having a tap with instant hot water, and comes around the counter to bring it to Mr. Gold’s table. He’s engrossed in his newspaper. “Thank you, dearie,” he says without looking up as she approaches the table. She stands next to the table and does not set the mug down. After a moment, this appears to catch his attention, and he looks up at her with irritation.    
  
“Enjoy,” Belle says, and deliberately drops the mug to the floor, where it breaks into several pieces. Tea pools around her shoes.   
  
Mr. Gold is speechless.   
  
“My goodness,” says Belle. “ Good thing it’s only a cup , hmm?” She turns her back on him to get a rag and a dustpan. When she returns to clean the mess, noticing with vicious satisfaction that the hem of his trousers is soaked, she adds, “I’ll get you another, made just the way you like it.”   
  
He doesn’t say a word before she returns to the kitchen. Ruby, however, accosts her at the trash bin. “What was  that about?”   
  
“I had a point to make,” Belle replies, starting another cup of tea.   
  
“We only have so many mugs, so I hope it was made.”   
  
“No more mugs will be sacrificed to my cause,” Belle tells her, and smiles. It’s a slightly wild smile. Three minutes steeping the tea -these are not enchanted tea leaves, and they do stew- and just the slightest bit of sugar and milk.    
  
“Here you go, Mr. Gold,” she says when she brings it to him. “I remembered how you take your tea. I remember a  lot , actually. They didn’t allow me hobbies in the hospital that might help me forget things, like spinning or something.”   
  
He rustles his newspaper at her. “Then I think you’ll remember that I said I no longer required your services,” he tells her scathingly.   
  
She does not go back to his table again the whole time he is there to get him a fresh cup of tea. He takes an awfully long time to read the entire newspaper, not that she’s paying attention, and she’s rather surprised to find he left her a tip when he does leave; she’s even more surprised that the tip, instead of being a standard 15%, is actually 100%.    
  
Which doesn’t come to that much for just a cup of tea, but it appears he tried to make a point as well. His, however, is a lot less clear.   
  
*  *  *   
  
“ You have to hide me! ” Belle says, slamming the door of the pawnshop behind her and turning the sign to closed. Her hair is disheveled and her cheeks flushed; she clutches a book in one hand and a cinnamon roll in the other. “Look, I don’t have anywhere else to go. Just let me hide here.”   
  
Gold emerges from behind the counter and looks her up and down, then limps forward to reach past her and lock the shop door. “Come away from the window if you’re looking to hide,” he says, “and tell me what you need saving from  this time, dearie.”   
  
“The queen is out there, to begin with,” Belle answers. Gold peers through the blinds; at the far end of the street, Regina is emerging from her black Mercedes, Belle knows, and breathes in, and then out, slowly. The witch in the road with the black carriage never changed her style. “She didn’t see me. And I definitely do not want to see her.”   
  
“A popular sentiment,” Gold observes, leading her farther into the shop. “Though why you would rather see me is both relevant and less popular.”   
  
She makes a face at him, and takes a bite of her roll. “You, at least, gave me a nice bedroom after locking me up,” she says after swallowing. “And it’s not just Regina. The man from the bakery down the street is after me too. I would have hidden in the ice cream shop, but they don’t allow outside food in, and they’re also closed. I think it’s some sort of Russian snow princess and an Ivan thing. I mean, why the manager and the guy who scoops ice cream close at odd times and hide in the freezer together.”   
  
Gold closes his eyes briefly. “And why, dearie, is the man from the bakery after you?”   
  
“Because I stole this roll. And a loaf of bread. I was out of money after paying rent this week.” She licks frosting from her fingers. “I used to be a much better thief.”   
  
“You’re--!” Gold exclaims, and cuts himself off, scrambling to move a pile of papers from the counter upon which Belle is leaning. “These monographs are over a hundred years old,  please do not drip icing on them .” The papers thus rescued and stowed away safely, he pauses. “You were never a thief,” he says.   
  
“I had to survive somehow after I left your home,” she replies, and shrugs. She won’t let him see how hard that time was on her. She survived, that was the main thing, not that he made her have to learn how. “But I suppose thirty years locked up made my skills a bit rusty.”   
  
“I find it preferable not to dwell on the past,” Gold says curtly. “Anyone else after you?”   
  
“Possibly Emma, I’m late for my shift but I don’t think she’ll care.” Belle finishes her cinnamon roll and wipes her hand on her skirt. “You probably don’t need to worry about that unless you’ve stowed any babies around here that you traded for lately.” She takes a step closer to him. “You haven’t, have you? Because I think I’m allowed to arrest you for that.” A smile pulls at the corner of her mouth.   
  
“I don’t seem to have any in stock at the moment,” Mr. Gold says, a smile tugging at his mouth, too. “Although you seem to think you could manage to arrest me.”   
  
“We are on slightly more equal terms, now,” she says, eyeing his cane. “You can’t disappear in a puff of smoke anymore, after all.”   
  
“I’m not entirely out of tricks, my dear.” He grins the full, feral Rumpelstiltskin smile at that, and she takes a step closer.    
  
“I should hope not,” she says. “If you were, I wouldn’t know you at all, now, would I?”   
  
“And what makes you think that you do?”   
  
The humor goes out of the room, and the silence stretches. “You may never have given me the chance to know all about you,” Belle says quietly, “but I did get to know you, Rumpelstiltskin, probably far better than you thought. Did you know I was happy, back then? Traded away in a deal and locked in a castle, and I was  happy  there. And every time you saw me happy, you smiled, just a bit. And then you’d go up to your tower, or go spin, or find something else to do. You wanted happiness, but you were afraid to reach for it.”   
  
She looks at him directly, and he looks away, rubbing the handle of his cane with his thumb, the same way he used to do with his spindle. “Well,” he says to his cane, “once, it did fall right into my arms, which was unexpected.”   
  
“I gathered that, from the look on your face,” Belle offers. “You’re a man now, Mr. Gold, and I’m not a captive princess anymore. We can be who we want. We can stop turning our backs to each other.”   
  
Gold looks back up at her. “There’s a back door, through here, dearie,” he informs her, motioning towards the back room. “Regina won’t see you leave, and I’m sure Sheriff Swan is anxiously awaiting your arrival. Especially if she’s received a phone call about her deputy being today’s main source of crime in town.”   
  
Belle lifts her head and stands up straight. “I’ll see you around, then. And your shop is dusty, by the way. It’s a good thing I don’t have allergies.”   
  
With that (because she always makes sure to have the last word, with him), she leaves via the suggested back door.    
  
When she gets to her desk, Emma just sighs, and mentions that something was just delivered for her. Belle finds an envelope on her desk; inside, her rent check, made out to the management company for her building, is torn neatly in two. There is nothing else in the envelope.   
  
Belle says a few words she learned from Gaston’s soldier friends as she rips the check into confetti. So much for last words.   
  
*  *  *   
  
“I don’t want to be on this much medication,” she tells Dr. Hopper flatly.    
  
“I know,” he tells her patiently, “and I would rather you be able to cope with your problems without the medication. We’ve dramatically reduced your anti-depressants already from double the maximum dose you were receiving at the hospital to a regular adult dose. It’s been two weeks since we tapered to 150 milligrams of the sertraline. How has that been working for you?”   
  
“I’ve been tired,” Belle confesses, wishing her body was not so weak that it was subject to the whims of whatever alchemy that was supposed to fix her mind. “I’ve been eating about once a day. I don’t have the appetite for more.”   
  
“And your mood?” He looks at her closely. “Any urge to hurt yourself? Or anyone else?”   
  
The Queen. Her men. The clerics. Maybe goddamn Rumpelstiltskin. “No. To both. Still having the anxiety, and I still have to check that the door locks on my side whenever I’m inside, but... it’s nothing I can’t handle.”   
  
“And you have the Xanax, for if you need it.”    
  
Belle nods. She doesn’t want to admit how many times she’s needed it. Or how many times she hasn’t taken it when she should because she’s really trying to be brave and face the things that make her heart race, and sometimes all it gets her is sobbing uncontrollably in the ladies bathroom. With the lock on her side of the door.   
  
She can’t bear it that after being everyone’s prisoner for so long, she needs to lock herself up sometimes.   
  
“I know you want to be off all of the medications,” Dr. Hopper says, laying a hand on her arm. “But it’s going to be hard for the first few weeks when you don’t have them. Not as hard as that first week out of the hospital when you suddenly were off everything, but still hard. And we want to do everything we can to lessen that when you do stop taking them.”   
  
Her doctor says ‘we’ as if he has to share in swallowing her pills every morning. In remembering why she has to take them. “I know,” she answers. “I’m just not very good at being patient.”   
  
Dr. Hopper nods understandingly. “I’m afraid we’ll have to cut our session a little bit short today; I have another patient who needed to reschedule coming in.”   
  
Belle stands, confirms her appointment for next week, and opens the door to leave. But standing in her way is Mr. Gold.   
  
“Miss French,” he says coolly, in greeting.   
  
“I wasn’t expecting to see  you here, Mr. Gold,” she replies, looking at him directly. “I wouldn’t have guessed you for the sort to share your troubles with someone else.”   
  
“I can sometimes be persuaded.”   
  
Belle turns to Archie. “Dr. Hopper? Would you mind if Mr. Gold and I had a word in private before your session?”   
  
“I don’t think--” starts Gold.   
  
“I’ll just go make some coffee,” says Archie.    
  
“I’ll squash that damn cricket,” Gold growls as Belle pulls him by the sleeve over to the waiting room couch. She sits down, while he remains standing, leaning on his cane as if he might have to make an escape.   
  
“No, you won’t. You’ll talk to me, for once.”   
  
“I’d rather avoid it, dearie.”   
  
“I hadn’t noticed,” Belle comments, deadpan. “You’ve been quite successful at it. I just want to know something. After all these years, are you  still angry with me?”   
  
He finally focuses on her face, after having tried looking everywhere else. “Angry?” he asks, and sounds genuinely surprised.   
  
“You were angry enough to tell me to leave. Ever since I got out you’ve either snarled at me or practically ran the other way, except when you were making bizarre gestures of generosity. Was I supposed to think you were attempting to ask me out?”   
  
“Hardly. What you were supposed to do, Belle, was move on with your life. Forget me.” He lowers himself stiffly to the couch, gripping the handle of his cane. “This cursed town doesn’t get happy endings. Not until it falls apart. True love’s kiss can’t break  every  curse.”   
  
Belle rolls her eyes. “Exhibit A, sitting on this couch. So is that it? You’re pushing me away again because you’re too afraid of another bad rejection? And that’s more important to you than being happy, even if it isn’t forever.  Are you twelve ?”   
  
“What?”   
  
“You sound like some of the boys from Mary Margaret’s classes. Too afraid of being laughed at to tell a girl they like her.”   
  
Belle feels wicked laughter bubbling up inside her and presses it down. She just called the powerful Rumpelstiltskin a prepubescent boy.    
  
“That’s not what I’m afraid of,” Gold says, his eyes dark. “Regina locked you up just in case she could use you for leverage against me. She used you once to try to destroy me and thought you’d be useful again. You and I can’t have happiness. The only reason she’s letting you run free now is to make sure I see you and look like I’ll do whatever she asks if she gets to you again.”   
  
“So to protect me, you’re staying away so we can’t be together,” Belle says quietly. She stands up and looks down at him, this man who she still loves, like a tired old part of her heart that keeps beating because it always has. “I’m so glad you made that decision for both of us, spared me the trouble of thinking or offering help.” She bends over and lays a hand on his shoulder, her face very close to his. She will not kiss him. “I was never as helpless as you imagined. And I don’t trust women in fancy carriages, or very nearly anyone else, anymore. I can take care of my own safety. And you’re clearly quite concerned with yours.”   
  
She straightens up. It’s time to leave. Archie stands at the door with a steaming cup of coffee, and Gold pulls himself to his feet. “Think what you like, dearie. Maybe in some other time or place things will be different.”   
  
“It’s possible,” Belle says, her hand on the door, “but I won’t wait forever.”   
  
“I would never expect you to.”   
  
*  *  *   
  
Emma has set fire to everything she has touched.   
  
Not literally. Well, mostly not literally. There are a lot of inexplicable fires anyway.    
  
But she has been the catalyst for change in everyone with whom she has come into contact. After all the problems with David and Mary Margaret, their dreams that they don’t remember became dreams that they could remember, shared dreams of running through the forest, swords at their sides. They take an archery class together and hit every target. They call each other Snow and Charming in public.    
  
Archie and Geppetto spend more time together. They remember how they are old friends, and exactly how old of friends they are.   
  
Ruby growls at rude customers, her eyes changing a little, and they leave her excellent tips. Something in them recognizes a predator. She runs through the woods on her days off, needing the wind tugging at her hair. She hates having to shave her legs twice a day, though.   
  
The forest is closer to town than it ever has been. For once, everyone notices. But it seems right, somehow. The bulldozed playground on the beach now has a stone pathway, with bridge sides, extending out into the sea.    
  
If you look at the nuns’ shadows, sometimes you can see the wings.   
  
And Regina is less popular than she’s ever been. Her lipstick has become darker. Henry flees to Emma’s side whenever he can, and Regina has stopped pretending she isn’t using her adopted son as a bargaining chip in whatever power play she’s making. But somehow, people aren’t as afraid of her as they should be. They wonder why they thought she owns the town, and stop thinking that speaking out against her is futile. They gossip about her affair with Sidney Glass, and don’t bother to hide it.   
  
The world has become thin, and at opposite ends of Storybrooke, both Mr. Gold and the girl who knows herself to be Belle watch with catty glee. Even Emma can’t deny anymore than some weird, weird shit is happening. Belle was at her apartment having tea the first day she called Mary Margaret (whose hair is growing out) ‘Mom’ as a joke and since then it’s become a bit more of a habit. Though she is likely to call everyone by several different names and then glare around as if the world was complicated just for her annoyance.   
  
And Henry is the most smug boy to ever live. Mary Margaret embracing her role as the grandmother who bakes cookies does not help matters.   
  
Regina holds a press conference on primetime local news. “There have been reports of people having delusions and confusion all over Storybrooke. This appears to be a problem with the water treatment plant and is being resolved. I am personally overseeing the efforts to make sure that our water is clean. Rest assured, I am the mayor here, and part of being a leader is making sure that you know everything going on and having it under control. And I do.”    
  
It sounds far more like a threat than a reassurance. Nobody believes her. The supposed issues with the water treatment plant are not resolved. Two weeks later, she calls a town hall meeting and makes it clear that everyone physically capable of being there is required to be there. Rumors swirl that she is announcing her resignation.   
  
“She’d never resign,” says Snow one afternoon, having coffee with Emma, Ashley, Ruby, and Belle. “She murdered my father as just one step to get where she is. I don’t think she’s capable of letting go.”   
  
“She isn’t,” agrees Belle. “The only reason I’m not still locked up is because she couldn’t do anything without incriminating herself.”   
  
“Guess we should all eat before going, then,” says Ruby. “It’s probably just a surprise poison apple potluck.”   
  
They all take a minute to ponder the possibility. It wasn’t so long ago that Briar Rose, whose mail was addressed to a Brandi Jones, woke up from a coma caused by diabetic shock. Her girlfriend, who was actually pretty well known in certain circles for being a roller derby champ, had kissed her, and Brandi had opened her eyes. Dr. Whale had dryly remarked that he was well on his way to publishing a case review on coma treatments.    
  
“Regina would get bored,” Snow decides. “I mean, it was one thing for her to poison me. But if the whole town was mostly dead she’d have no one to rule over.”   
  
“And then what would she do for fun?” wonders Belle.   
  
It doesn’t take much asking around, in the end, to figure out that all the resignation rumors originated from people working in Regina’s office. They could have insider information. But everybody figures that if you work in Regina’s office, she already owns you.   
  
And then Emma, Granny, Sidney, Mr. Gold, and everyone else considered to have community influence receive notes requiring their presence at a private meeting prior to the town hall meeting. Of course, Emma reasons to Belle while sitting at the diner’s bar, if she  was resigning, she would probably want to make arrangements for everything before the announcement.   
  
This makes sense, in ordinary logic. But Belle thinks she remembers a story from  1001 Arabian Nights about a king who invited all the neighboring rulers to a feast, and then slaughtered them all, to show he could.   
  
The day finally arrives. An hour before the private meeting, Belle calls Mr. Gold. He doesn’t pick up, which she is not surprised at; he probably is concocting plans of his own. “Regina’s going to do something to you, to all of you. She wouldn’t just let you go. Storybrooke is falling apart, you know that. I’m sure she expects some sort of resistance from the rest of you. But I’m just the crazy girl she locked up. She won’t expect me.” There is a beep, signalling that Belle can’t leave a longer voicemail. She hangs up.    
  
She puts on her mother’s golden necklace; it has been with her so long that it must surely have some magic essence invested in it. She takes the very sharp kitchen knife from her drawer; it will do all the things a magic knife could do and it came with a plastic sleeve she can use to tuck it into the back of her jeans, hidden against her back. She pins her hair away from her face in a way where it can’t be pulled. She looks at the bottle of Xanax a minute, and then decides to take one; she is confronting Regina, and sometimes doing the brave thing needs a little support. She kisses her father’s forehead, tells him she will see him at the town hall, because love is the only force stronger than sorcery’s power. She thinks of Rumpelstiltskin, and the pressure of his lips against hers.   
  
Then she walks to the mayor’s office.   
  
“Miss French,” Regina says smoothly, applying another coat of lipstick she doesn’t need, “I’m sorry, but I have a lot of work to do before this meeting, and I really don’t have time to chat.”   
  
“That’s what I’m here about,” says Belle, closing the door behind her. She is alone with the queen. She feels her heart try to speed up, her head try to spin with its usual panic upon the sight of Regina. But she won’t let her body betray her. She walks up to Regina’s desk. “I know who holds the power in this town. And I know what you’re up against. You may be working on your own spells, but there are other people doing the same. Some of them don’t even need spells to have power.”   
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, my dear,” replies Regina, with a little laugh. “Although you may want to spend some more time in the hospital.”   
  
“We both know that every time you looked through the slot in my door we knew everything going on. Lying may be natural to you, your Majesty, but playing stupid is not flattering. Rumpelstiltskin put me aside, ruined my life. I knew he’d regret it, and you can’t tell me that he didn’t put that regret on display every moment after I was gone. So I want to make you a deal.”   
  
The queen leans forward. Belle has interested her. “You certainly learned a lot from him.”   
  
“More than he ever knew,” Belle says coldly. “I’ll let you use me however you want, short of killing me, because you know that Rumpelstiltskin won’t be able to control his spells if I’m around. And when you beat him? Beat them all? You’ll release me and make sure I have power in this town. I’m not going to be used or owned by anyone again.”   
  
“And you really think a bastard like him ever loved you that much?”   
  
Belle leans her hands on the desk. “I never told you the one thing you wanted to know, no matter how much you tried. True love’s kiss worked.  He kissed me and it worked . That was why he threw me out. Do you ever think he would have slipped up so much to be put in prison if he hadn’t heard that I was dead?”   
  
Regina smiles, and Belle knows she has her. She had known Regina, who lived on lies, would know if Belle lied. So Belle didn’t. “Do we have a deal?”   
  
“It appears that we have similar goals. Yes. We have a deal.” Regina comes around the desk, and stops at her side table. Belle turns to watch her, and to keep any lump from the knife concealed at her back. “Shall we drink on it?”   
  
“Poisoned apple cider?” Belle asks. Regina laughs.   
  
“Single malt Scotch.”   
  
“Then pour doubles,” Belle says, and smiles, stepping closer. Regina has her back turned, pouring the drinks, but Belle knows better than to try an overhand stab from behind; she intends to do far more than simply scratch Regina’s spine. Belle reaches behind her to slide the knife from its sheath, and grips the handle.    
  
It is time to end this, and Belle doesn’t know what happens after the knife. She doesn’t care. She has never known where her life was about to drop her next.   
  
Regina turns to her, the two cut-glass crystal glasses in her hand, and Belle shoves her blade under the line of Regina’s ribcage, up through her lungs and her heart, making sure she puts enough force into it for the knife to go up through Regina’s shoulder. Hot blood pours down over Belle’s hands, burning them, running in rivulets to her elbows. The crystal glasses shatter as they finally hit the ground. Belle gives the knife a twist, hoping to slice through a lung.    
  
Regina smiles, and steps forward, further impaling herself on the blade and ruining her stylish grey silk blouse for good. “Did you really think you could end me with a kitchen knife, you stupid little bitch?”   
  
Belle bares her teeth. “I was curious to see what would happen. But you want to know something interesting? Everything in this town is waking up. Not just the people. Almost everything. It all is remembering what it used to be. Except this knife never had a past life. I got it online. You never enchanted this knife. It isn’t part of your kingdom. It’s just... a knife. And never yours.”   
  
With that, she slides a hand along the flat width of the knife, under Regina’s skin; she is so covered in blood that more cannot matter to her.   
  
“Do you think you’ll rip out my heart?” asks Regina, still amused. “Do you actually think I’d keep it in such an unsafe place?”   
  
The office doors slam open as if a gust of wind hit them. “No, your Majesty!” says Mr. Gold loudly, striding in unevenly, “I think you’d leave it beneath the family vault in the cemetery. The one that’s just been blown away by that storm you’d see if you looked out the window. Practically expected to get knocked down by Dorothy or the Wicked Witch of the West on my way over.”   
  
“Rumpelstiltskin,” Regina snarls, all amusement instantly gone. “Are you doing this?  All of this?”   
  
Mr. Gold comes to stand next to Belle, and removes her hands from Regina and the knife. “No, dearie, this one’s all on you,” he answers, licking his lips. He presses the knife to her neck until she is forced back against the wall. “ You sacrificed the thing you loved most to enact this curse.  You poured your heart and soul into keeping it going.  You put a bit of yourself into each and every person in this town, and you know what they eventually did? They dumped that bit out like a stone in their shoe. That’s all you are, Regina. Just a tiny- annoying- stone.” He punctuates the words with quick stabs.   
  
“Do you know that your little cleaning girl here tried to make a deal with me to overpower you?” Regina tries, after letting out a gasp of pain.    
  
“First off, she’s not my anything, and second, I’ve no doubt she did. Because, as I’ve found out and contrary to what you once told me, Belle is extremely good at surviving.”   
  
Gold steps back, and lets the knife drop with a clatter to the floor. “And you, Regina, are just... nothing.”   
  
“And you know what you are, Gold?  Rumpelstiltskin ? Just some sad old dealmaker. I’ve put everything into this curse. And I know what you left out when you designed it. You left out a happiness for yourself. So when everyone goes back to their kingdoms with their happy ever afters, you’re just going to land with a hard thud, no magical kiss, just a shadow of who you used to be.”   
  
“Is that supposed to be a curse, Regina?” he asks.   
  
“No,” she says, smiling cruelly. “Just a prediction.”   
  
“Regina,” says Belle, “do you honestly think either of us care at this point? Half of Storybrooke has disappeared into that storm, including the hospital, so whatever hell you’re predicting, we’ll pack our sandals and sunscreen.”   
  
They all take a look out the window. There’s isn’t much left but the swiftly encroaching dark forest,  Macbeth played in real life.  Out, out, damned spot , thinks Belle, looking at her hands, but if there was anyone in the room who fit the role, Regina would have shamed Lady Macbeth for not killing her husband and getting the throne herself.    
  
“Regina,” says Gold tiredly, “you and your spell are the same now. Share its fate. Please.” At this final word, the color drains from her face. She raises a hand to throw a curse, but there is no magic left in her.    
  
And that is when she begins to go sort of thin and stretchy, like a match set to film, and Belle’s mind is filled with the dark buzzing plague of shadows that drove away her thoughts every time the queen visited her in the hospital. Gold pulls her away from Regina, wrapping both his arms around her and turning to shield her. “I love you,” he whispers raggedly next to her ear.   
  
“I know,” she replies, as Regina begins to, it appears, explode.   
  
“Well, I’m glad you at least got to see  Star Wars before we went back to the land without movies,” Gold says dryly, wincing each time a flare of burning dark magic hits him.    
  
“You can’t be sure we’re even going back,” Belle says, to distract him from the pain.   
  
“It seems Storybrooke was built on top of our land, and I’ve read some of the tales about me from this world,” he comments, “and in one version I stomp my way right through the floor and into hell.”   
  
“Then I guess I’ll see you there, Rumpelstiltskin,” is all Belle has time to say, before they are falling into blackness and everything ceases to exist.


End file.
